Bringing the beauty of Plan9 to Linux

What is Plan 9?

A distributed operating system, developed as the research
successor to Unix.
Plan 9 is most notable for representing all system interfaces,
including those required for networking and the user-interface,
through the filesystem rather than specialized interfaces.

What is Linux?

An operating system kernel used by a family of Unix-like operating
systems. In the early days, Linux rapidly accumulated developers and
users who adopted code from the Minix,
GNU and
BSD projects for use with the new
operating system. Today the Linux kernel receives contributions from
thousands of programmers.

So, what is Glendix?

Plan 9 was Bell Labs' second shot at making an ideal general purpose
operating system, with the goal of fixing every mistake made in Unix.
Glendix aims to bring ideas from Plan 9 to Linux,
one of the most popular open source kernels. The result hopes to
be a much improved operating system with richer, better-designed features.

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Quick Start

Several people have had trouble in getting a Glendix machine up and running. This
page should help get started as quickly as possible!

The latest Glendix patches work for the kernel version 2.6.31.6. If you'd like to use a different
kernel version, you must use the source files from our repository
to create your own patched kernel tree.

You will need an existing Linux installation, and must be familiar with the procedure for configuring,
compiling and installing new kernels (this may be specific to your distro).

Don't forget to select the CONFIG_BINFMT_PLAN9 option. Either select 'Y' (it will be built into
the kernel) or 'M' (in which case you have to load the module by executing modprobe binfmt_plan9). The
option will appear in the main configuration menu.

Compile and install the kernel as you would normally do.

Usage

Boot into your new kernel. Check if the message "Hello, Plan9!" occurs in the kernel log
(accessed using the dmesg command). If you compiled binfmt_plan9 as a module, you will need to
load the module using modprobe before the message will appear.